Glasses Half Full
by rhymenocerous
Summary: D/L One-shot. Pure fluff. "Lindsay felt her legs go slightly wobbly as Danny smiled back at her from behind the half-rimmed frames she'd not seen him wear in... God, it must be nearly four years now... She'd forgotten how sexy he was in his glasses."


**A/N: Um... so, hi. *Crawls out from under a rock, blinking in the sunlight after months and months of hiding in the dark* I feel like I should go into some kind of long-winded explanation for my lengthy absence from Fan Fiction... but I don't want to bore you. Those who've ready my other stories will know that a few months back I lost a family member and also had to uproot my life, starting over in a new city with a new job. Needless to say, I've been incredibly busy with not a lot of time for writing. It was a lot to deal with in a very short period of time and kind of left me reeling, feeling like I was barely keeping my head above water.**

**I'd like to say a huge thanks to those folks who checked in on me from time to time to make sure I was still alive. You guys have no idea how much it meant to know that you were thinking of me.**

**Anyway, this is a one-shot that I started a long time ago. I thought a good way to get myself back in the saddle would be to do something new and I was browsing through my half-written stories and I decided this was light and fun and complete fluff - just what the doctor ordered. I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Danny Messer sighed as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Damn, he hated wearing these things. It had been a long time and he'd gotten used to the freedom of his contacts, not having to continuously shove his glasses into place whenever they started to slip down his nose and the constant up and down from his forehead and back to his eyes whenever he needed to look into a microscope then back to his notes. Back when his glasses had been a regular part of his everyday existence he'd never really noticed how many times a day he touched his face, but after nearly four years without them, he was slowly being driven crazy by the sheer inconvenience.<p>

Not only that, but people were giving him strange looks in the lab. It was the same as when he'd first stopped wearing them in the first place… people had done double takes, several people calling out "forget something this mornin', Messer?" with devious smiles on their faces when he walked down the hallway without his trademark spectacles, making him feel extremely self-conscious about his appearance. He realized that people were just trying to place what was different about him during those first few days. Thankfully, the unwanted attention had soon passed and Danny hadn't given it a second thought… until today, that is.

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

_This morning he'd been getting ready for work, just as he would do on any other day. However, during his morning routine Lucy had come tearing into the bathroom, squealing in terror that there was a spider in her bedroom. She'd careened into his legs just as he was about to put in his contact lens and in an attempt to keep his balance he'd flailed his arms sending his contact plummeting into the toilet._

_He'd momentarily considered fishing it out of the bowl… Lindsay had just cleaned the bathroom the other day, after all… but he quickly decided against it. The mere thought of putting something that had been in the toilet into his eye just made his stomach turn, no matter how clean said toilet bowl may be. _

_Lucy continued to whimper and tug at his jeans and, as any devoted father would do, he'd followed her to her bedroom and performed his duties as spider-slayer extraordinaire, earning himself a grateful hug and kiss from his daughter who'd fervently declared that he was her hero. _

_Satisfied that Lucy's bedroom was now a safe and spider-free zone, Danny returned to the bathroom, digging around in the medicine cabinet looking for another pair of contacts. He muttered a string of curses under his breath when he found an empty box staring back at him. He smacked his forehead, remembering that he was supposed to have refilled his prescription last month, but had missed his appointment when he'd been called into work early for his shift and hadn't yet bothered to reschedule._

"_Shit," he grumbled. "Goddamn it. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" _

_He briefly considered his options; he knew his eyesight was good enough that even without any corrective lenses he could manage to stumble around their apartment without crashing into anything and doing any major damage to himself or others. But it wasn't nearly good enough to do his job. And that meant that he was going to have to break out the glasses that he'd thought he'd retired for good. _

_Making his way into the bedroom he shared with his wife, he pulled open his bedside table drawer and grabbed the small leather case he'd pushed to the back of the drawer and extracted the pair of angular half-rimmed glasses that had been such an enormous part of his identity for so many years. He slid them onto his face and turned to observe his appearance in the mirror mounted on the wall of the bedroom, sighing as he did so. What had once been a familiar part of him now seemed so foreign and out of place and he scrunched up his nose in distaste at the prospect of having to wear the damn things until he managed to get himself in to see the eye doctor… whenever that would be._

_He was pulled away from his musings by Lucy calling for him to come and help her tie her shoes. He flicked off the bedroom light and followed the sound of his daughter's melodic voice out into the living room where he found her sitting on the floor with her little pink sneakers on her feet and an exasperated frown on her cherubic face._

"_Daddy, I can't do it. I tried," she lamented, pointing to the tangled mess of laces on her feet. "But I can't!"_

"_It's okay, Luce," Danny soothed, crouching down and beginning to sort out her footwear, starting with removing her shoes and switching them so they were on the right feet. "I'm really proud of you for trying, sweetheart." He patiently pulled apart her laces and retied them, Lucy attentively watching his every move while he talked her through the steps._

"… _and loop and around, then pull it tight. There. All done!" Danny declared when her shoes were successfully tied. He gave her little feet a pat and she grinned up at him before cocking her head to the side and pointing at his face._

"_Silly, Daddy," she giggled. "You look funny."_

_"Huh?" _

_Danny smiled, realizing suddenly that Lucy had probably never seen him in his glasses. He'd switched to contacts shortly before he and Lindsay had found out they were expecting and, save for a few rare relapses when Lucy was a newborn and Danny had been too exhausted to bother with his contacts, he'd never worn them around his little girl. "Thanks a lot, kiddo," he said, ruffling her blonde hair. "I can't hear that enough."_

"_Why is you wearing dat?" Lucy enquired, reaching out to touch his face. Danny sighed inwardly as her tiny thumb left a smudge on one of his lenses.  
><em>

"_I'm wearing my glasses because I need them to help me see better," he explained, pulling them off his face and bringing the glasses to his mouth, letting out a hot breath then wiping at the lens with the hem of his shirt._

"_No you don't," Lucy said matter-of-factly. "You don't needs to. I never see'd d'em before."_

"_That's because I don't usually wear them."_

"_Why?"_

"_Um…" Danny paused, peering thoughtfully at his glasses, trying to figure out how to explain the concept of contact lenses to a three-and-a-half year old. Noting that the smudge was gone, he placed them back on his face. "Well, uh… usually I put special drops in my eyes that help me to see. But today I ran out, so I have to wear these instead."_

"_Oh. Okay." Lucy nodded, apparently satisfied with his explanation for now. Somewhat surprised that she had accepted him at face value instead of asking her usual barrage of _Why? Why? Why? _Danny gathered her in his arms, blowing a raspberry on her cheek before he settled her on his hip and grabbed her backpack from where Lindsay had left it on the kitchen table before she'd left for work earlier that morning. His arms full of his daughter, his coat and bag and her backpack, he shuffled out the door helpless against the fact that his glasses had already started to slip down his face._

-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-

"Yo, Four-eyes!" Flack said as he rapped his knuckles on the doorframe of the lab Danny was working in.

"Shut up, you prick," Danny muttered, giving his glasses a vengeful shove up his nose.

"Hey, man. Watch the attitude," Flack chuckled. "I got a rule about hitting people in glasses, but in your case I'm prepared to make an exception."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Did you want something, or were you just here to be a pain in my ass?"

Flack grinned at him. "A little of both," he replied. "You know I can never pass up a chance to get under your skin, Danno." He wandered into the lab and peered over Danny's shoulder at the samples he was examining. "But I also figured I'd check in and see if you had anything new for me on the Greene case. We get anything on that sample you pulled from the vic's shirt?"

"Actually, I do," Danny said. He proceeded to explain to Flack that the yellowish-brown smudge he'd sampled had turned out to be sap from a particularly rare type of tree that was only known to grow in a few places in the greater New York area.

"Well, that's a start I guess," Flack said, patting Danny on the back. "Good work, nerd."

"Get out of here, you jackass," Danny said, shoving Flack away from him. "Don't you have some actual detective work to do?"

"Alright, alright," Flack laughed, raising his hands in surrender. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Messer. I'm going."

* * *

><p>And so it went for the rest of the morning. Already self-conscious, Danny shoved his glasses resentfully back up his nose with each passing comment or double-take directed his way by his coworkers and supposed friends. By noon, he'd had enough, dropping resignedly into the chair at his desk, wrenching the cursed frames from his face and shoving them resentfully into the drawer before leaning back in his chair and massaging the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as he closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh.<p>

"Bad day Messer?"

Danny jumped at the voice coming from across the room and he opened his eyes to see a colourful blur sitting at the desk across from him. He hadn't realized there was anyone else in the office when he'd come in and he squinted at the source of the distinctive, lazy drawl.

"Yeah. Something like that, Jo," he huffed, setting his elbows on the top of his desk and resting his chin in the palms of his hands.

"You wanna talk about it?" the blur offered.

Danny shook his head. "Nah. I'm alright, really," he assured her. "It's just... you know how sometimes one little thing going wrong in the morning can mess up your whole day?" He couldn't tell for sure, but he thought the blur might have nodded its head, so he took that as a sign of agreement and continued. "Yeah, well, that's all it is. Nothing serious. Just got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning I guess."

The blur regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "Why'd you stop wearing them?"

"What?"

"Your glasses," the blur said. "I talked to people around the lab and they said you used to wear them all the time, and then one day... poof. No more glasses. There must have been a reason you stopped wearing them in the first place. And why wearing them today is bothering you so much. So come on. Spill; what's up with the glasses? Why is this such a big deal for you?"

"You mean it's not enough that everyone out there -" Danny nodded his head in the direction of the hall and the adjacent labs and offices, "- is enjoying giving me a hard time about them? I gotta have another reason?"

It was almost unnerving seeing the usually unflappable Danny Messer so ruffled and Jo knew that there must be more to his current funk than he was willing to admit. "Messer, I've seen you take far, far worse from that crowd without batting an eyelash," she said. "So yes - I'm going to need more than 't_hey're picking on me_' to satisfy my curiosity."

Across the desks from her, Danny sighed and she saw his shoulders slump slightly in defeat. He toyed with a pencil from the jar on his desk, twirling it between his fingers and avoiding her gaze as he gathered his thoughts.

"A few years ago I went through a real tough time," Danny said, his voice low and his eyes fixed on a random spot in front of him. "I made a lot of mistakes, hurt a lot people." He paused, clearing his throat in an attempt to hide the emotion in his voice. "I did a lot of things I'm not all that proud of and I ended up pushing everyone away from me; my family, my friends... even Lindsay."

Although she knew Danny couldn't really see her, Jo smiled sympathetically. She instinctively knew the incident Danny was referring to without needing him to go into details or dredge up painful memories from the past. Before she'd started at the lab, she'd taken the liberty of reading through the personnel files of her soon-to-be colleagues in an attempt to get to know them better - something that the twitchy lab tech, Adam seemed to have taken as a threat until she'd finally managed to win him over with her charm. While perusing Danny's file, she'd seen several notes relating to the death of Ruben Sandoval and her heart had gone out to Danny. Both Sid Hammerback and Sheldon Hawkes had made mention of how Danny had inadvertently IDed the body of the little boy and had nearly fallen apart when he realized what had happened to his young friend. And then there were Don Flack's notes regarding the theft of Danny's service revolver by the boy's mother and Danny's reckless yet heroic intervention to stop the grieving woman from shooting the man she blamed for her son's death.

"Everyone was trying to make me feel better," Danny continued, drawing Jo back from her musings. "But I didn't want to feel better, Jo. I wanted to wallow in my misery and guilt." He looked up and gave Jo a rueful smile. "It was Lindsay that made me realize what an asshole I was being. I wasn't just hurting myself, I was hurting everyone around me and she made me see all that I stood to lose if I kept going in that direction." The smile faded from his face and he set aside the pencil he'd been toying with, instead picking nervously at his fingernails as he spoke. "I almost lost her, Jo. Hell, I did lose her for a while there," he corrected himself with a shake of his head. "I had to work real hard to get her back and when I did, I made a promise to her and to myself that I was gonna change. The old Danny that pushed people away and didn't care who he hurt had to go. I had to change how I reacted to situations, and how I treated the people around me. And as for the glasses," he shrugged his shoulders and clasped his hands together on the desk in front of him in an attempt to keep himself from fidgetting, "I guess I figured that while I was making changes on the inside... it couldn't hurt to make a change on the outside. The new Danny - the _better _Danny - doesn't wear glasses. Besides, they're a pain in the ass and even my own daughter thinks I look stupid in the fucking things."

Jo got up from her seat and rounded the desks, perching on the edge of Danny's and regarding him speculatively. He squinted up at her, his head cocked to one side inquisitively as she reached down and opened his drawer, pulling his glasses out from their hiding place.

"They're just glasses, Danny," she said, carefully unfolding them and sliding them onto his face before giving him an appraising glance and patting him gently on the cheek. "They don't make or break you and they certainly don't define who you are."

Danny shook his head and chuckled. "You know, for a fuzzy blur, you're pretty sharp," he said.

"That's _Detective _Fuzzy Blur to you, Messer," Jo laughed. "Just don't go thinking that wearing them is an excuse to be an asshole again and I think you'll be fine," she said, giving Danny a wink before getting to her feet. "Well, I'd better get back to work. That blood spatter isn't going to analyze itself, is it?"

She made for the door, turning when Danny called her name.

"Hey Jo?"

"Yes, Danny?"

"Thanks."

Jo smiled. "Anytime, Messer," she said before turning and walking away down the hall.

* * *

><p>Later that night, Lindsay was standing at the sink in the kitchen, washing the dishes from dinner when she heard the front door to their apartment open. "Hey, babe," Danny called out softly.<p>

"In here," Lindsay replied. She listened to the rustle of fabric as Danny hung up his jacket in the hall closet before kicking off his shoes, followed by the distinctive clank of the gun safe closing after he'd locked up his service weapon.

"Lucy already in bed?" Danny asked, padding into the kitchen. Lindsay smiled as she rinsed off the last pot and set it in the drying rack.

"Yeah. Sorry," she apologized, knowing how much both father and daughter hated not being able to say goodnight to one another. "She tried to stay up, but I found her zonked out on the couch halfway through Toy Story 3. Did you eat?"

She felt Danny's hands around her waist and she jumped slightly, not realizing he'd already come so close. He chuckled in her ear before pressing a kiss to her neck and she knew that - like herself - he was imagining Lucy's wrath the next morning when she discovered she'd passed out in the middle of her latest favourite movie. "Yeah. Flack and I grabbed a slice on the way home. God, I missed you today," he murmured against her skin, causing goose bumps to erupt all over her body.

"Mmm..." Lindsay sighed appreciatively as Danny pulled her tightly against his chest. She draped the dish cloth over the tap and leaned back into his embrace, savouring his comforting familiarity. "I know. Hawkes and I were at a scene all day and by the time we finally got back to the lab, you and Flack had taken off to follow up on a lead on the Greene case. You guys have any luck?"

"Yeah, we got the guy," Danny said. "The sap I found on the vic's shirt traced back to his landscaper. Apparently Greene was banging his wife and the guy with the green thumb saw red when he found out."

Lindsay chuckled at Danny's lame joke and turned in his arms. Her smile faltered on her face and her eyes went wide with surprise as she took in his appearance. She was suddenly transported back in time and the Danny Messer holding her in his arms wasn't her husband, but the man she'd had an ill-concealed crush on for nearly a year and a half. He was wearing a deep, crimson button-down shirt open at the collar with his dog tags peeking out at her, nestled in fine wisps of his chest hair; his hair was cropped short, having just gotten a hair cut the week before. Lindsay felt her legs go slightly wobbly as Danny smiled back at her from behind the half-rimmed frames she'd not seen him wear in... God, it must be nearly four years now. She was rendered momentarily speechless and her heart fluttered in her chest. She'd forgotten how sexy he was in his glasses.

Once she'd managed to collect herself, she cleared her throat. "Wow. So the rumours were true," she said, reaching up to gently touch Danny's face. "I heard around the lab that you were wearing them today, but I didn't think... I mean, you hate your glasses."

Danny grimaced slightly and nudged his frames back into place on the bridge of his nose with the tip of his finger. "Had an incident involving Lucy, a spider, my contact lens and the toilet. And I had no back-up contacts, so..." He sighed. "I'm gonna call the eye doctor tomorrow and see if I can get an emergency refill to tide me over until he can get me in for a proper exam." He sighed and tightened his grip around Lindsay's waist. "Until then, I hope you don't mind being married to a dork in glasses for a while."

A smile twitched at the corners of Lindsay's mouth and she trailed her hands up Danny's chest, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a kiss. She raked her fingers through his hair, revelling in the feeling of his lips on hers, his tongue gently probing for access to her mouth until, breathless, they broke apart. "In case you didn't notice," Lindsay whispered, pressing soft, fluttering kisses to his face, "I fell in love with a dork in glasses."

"Shut up," Danny chuckled, bending to nuzzle appreciatively against her neck. "You fell for me because of my sparkling personality and my hot body," he drawled, laughing when Lindsay reached down and swatted at his backside. "Ow! What? It's true. It had nothing to do with my glasses."

"You think you know me so well," Lindsay accused, giving Danny's ass a playful squeeze before dropping her fingers into the back pocket of his jeans. "For your information, I always had a thing for guys in glasses. There's just something so incredibly attractive about them; something mysterious, studious, intellectual... I remember the very first time I saw you, Danny. Your glasses were the first thing I noticed about you. They made your eyes look so beautiful, so blue, and they were in such contrast to the rest of your appearance. You looked so casually thrown together, yet your glasses were so... I don't know, just so serious. And aside from the fact that you were a complete egomaniac and a total jackass to me... I thought you were incredibly hot."

Lindsay was pleased to see a faint hint of colour rising on Danny's cheeks and he rolled his eyes. "Uh huh. Whatever."

"I'm serious!" Lindsay assured him, pressing yet another kiss to his cheek. "Honey, I always loved your glasses and it's a nice surprise to see you in them again. Kind of makes me feel like I'm seeing you again for the first time. It's very sexy, babe. You're very sexy."

Danny frowned slightly as Lindsay continued to pepper his face with gentle, exploratory kisses. "Why didn't you ever say anything, Linds?" he asked. "When I stopped wearing 'em... why didn't you tell me that you liked them?"

Pausing, Lindsay shrugged her shoulders and pulled back, cupping Danny's face in her hands. "It seemed important to you to get rid of them," she said, stroking his scruffy cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. "Like some kind of physical proof of the promises you made to me after..." She broke off, knowing that neither of them needed her to finish her sentence aloud. "Anyway, I guess I always figured you'd go back to them eventually. But you never did."

Danny smiled and rubbed his nose affectionately against hers. "I figured no one cared whether I wore them but me," he said. "It didn't seem to matter to anyone else... I just didn't think... but if I'd known, Linds..." he broke off and kissed her gently. "As much as they piss me off, I would've worn them again for you."

"Yeah?" Lindsay smiled up at him, her heart fluttering in her chest at the way the lenses magnified Danny's eyes, the blue of his irises flickering with unmistakeable desire.

"Anything for you, babe."

Lindsay pushed herself up on her toes and pressed her lips against Danny's, trailing her hands up from his backside and once again winding them around his neck. "I love you so much, Danny," she breathed when they pulled apart. "You don't have to wear them if you don't want to, but I want you to know that I love you either way; glasses or no glasses, I want you. I need you. You don't need to prove anything to me anymore, okay?"

"God, I love you," Danny whispered in her ear, pulling her body flush against his and letting his hands wander slowly under the hem of her shirt. "Maybe I could wear them around the house sometimes... if you want."

"I'd like that," Lindsay said. "I'd like that a lot, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm..." Lindsay sighed as Danny's hands teased up and down her spine. "Do you know what I'd really like right now, Danny?" she asked. Danny shook his head and she leaned forward, nibbling gently on his earlobe before whispering against the shell of his ear. "I want you to take me to bed, Danny. And I want you to keep your glasses on, Messer."

A wide grin spread across Danny's face before he captured Lindsay's lips in a fervent kiss, the two of them stumbling blindly from the kitchen toward the bedroom, pausing to explore one another briefly against a convenient wall until, unable to wait a moment longer, Danny swung Lindsay up into his arms, carrying her the rest of the way down the hall and kicking the bedroom door closed behind them.

* * *

><p>Taking a break from staring through a microscope at the trace she'd been analyzing, Jo sat at her desk the next morning, a cup of steaming coffee held tightly between her hands as she perused through the ream of new emails that awaited her attention. She idly edited out the junk mail, wondering to herself how it was that the New York Crime Lab had the technology to capture criminals who'd left barely a trace of themselves behind, but they couldn't manage to keep advertisements for penis enlargement from infiltrating through to her inbox.<p>

With a disgusted click of her tongue she deleted several of the more comically offensive offers, looking up at the sound of the office door opening. A smile split her face as she watched Danny Messer drop down into the seat across from her and bend down to boot up his computer. She couldn't help but notice that he looked exhausted and he was still wearing his glasses, along with a distinctly self-satisfied and goofy grin.

"Morning, Messer," Jo said, her voice lilting with amusement. "You seem to be in a better mood this morning. Have a good night?"

"I had a great night," Danny said happily. "You?"

"Not bad. Not bad," Jo replied, nodding her head. "So... still wearing the glasses, I see. Eye doctor couldn't squeeze you in this morning?"

"Uh..." Danny blushed slightly, pushing his glasses up his nose and a shy smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He was saved from replying as the door to the office opened once again and Lindsay stepped through the doorway. She looked nearly as tired as Danny, yet her face was also alight with the rosy glow of satisfaction. Danny turned to Lindsay, the two of them sharing coyly secretive little smiles, as if it wasn't clear to anyone who cared to look exactly what it was they were smiling about.

"Morning, Lindsay," Jo said, drawing the younger woman's attention back to the present from whatever memory she had been mentally reliving in her mind's eye.

"Oh. Um... morning, Jo," Lindsay said, her cheeks flushing lightly. "How are you?"

"Not nearly as good as you two," Jo teased, taking a long sip of her coffee and gazing back and forth between the couple. She watched as Lindsay passed behind Danny's desk, affectionately ruffling his hair with her fingers before taking a seat in front of her own computer. "I'm fine, thanks. Danny and I were just talking about his glasses. He was telling me yesterday that he couldn't wait to get rid of them, and yet here he is, wearing them again this morning..." She turned to Danny again. "So, eye doctor couldn't see you?"

"No... well, um... I haven't called yet to make an appointment," he mumbled, glancing quickly at Lindsay before flicking his gaze back to Jo. "I, um... I thought I might give them a try for a little while longer... I mean, I wore them for almost thirty years... what's another couple of days?"

Jo grinned knowingly at the pair of them over the rim of her coffee cup. "Well, if you're taking a poll on whether the glasses should stay or go, I'd like to put my vote in for keeping them," she said. "I think they look great. They make you look smart."

Lindsay let out a ladylike snort of laughter and Danny rolled his eyes. "Thanks Jo. Thanks a lot."

Flashing him a shrewd smile, Jo got to her feet and excused herself to go back to work, leaving Danny and Lindsay alone in their office. Lindsay smiled fondly over her desk at her husband.

"What?" Danny muttered, glancing at Lindsay out of the corner of his eye as he pulled the Greene file out of his drawer and flipped it open in front of him.

"Nothing... just admiring the view," Lindsay teased.

Danny narrowed his eyes at his wife before double checking the notes he'd made on the case he and Flack had worked the day before. "I think I'm going to call Dr. Dillon on my break to make an appointment," he said, closing the file, satisfied that everything was in order. "Even if I do decide to wear my glasses from time to time, my prescription is almost four years out of date. And as sexy as I am in them, they're probably not doing my eyes any favours. Plus, I can get him to give me a refill on my contacts while I'm at it."

"Wow. They don't just make you _look _smart..." Lindsay said with a smirk.

"Shut up," Danny chuckled. He pushed himself up out of his chair and crossed over to where Lindsay was sitting. "I gotta go find Flack and finish up on this one, get it ready to hand over to Mac so he can sign off on it." He bent and placed a chaste kiss to the top of her head. "I'll see you later, okay? Maybe we can even manage to have lunch together today?"

Lindsay smiled up at him and he couldn't resist planting a quick kiss to her upturned lips. "I love you, Dan," she said as he turned and made his way toward the door. "Oh, and Danny?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"If Flack gives you a hard time, send him my way," she said with a wink. "I'll put him in his place for you."

"Riiight," Danny laughed from the doorway. "Cause me in glasses again ain't enough reason for him to have a go at me. He'd be a million times worse if he thought I needed you to fight my battles for me." He shook his head and tapped the file against the heel of his hand. "Thanks, babe. But I think I can handle myself." With that, he shot her a grin and before he turned on his heel and wandered away down the hall. She watched him meet up with Flack, the two of them laughing and joking as they walk side by side down the hall, going over their respective case files. Just before the pair disappeared into Mac's office, she smiled as she saw Danny unconsciously shove his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose.

* * *

><p><strong>I got the idea for this one while watching episodes from seasons 4 and 5. I thought it might be fun to see Danny back in his glasses after a lengthy absence. As an occasional glasses-wearer myself, I know how irritating it can be when you've gone for a long time with contacts and suddenly are very conscious of how inconvenient your glasses can be. Plus, we never really got a good explanation for why Danny suddenly abandoned them, and I thought that maybe this might fill in that blank for those who, like me, were curious about his reasoning. <strong>

**I hope you liked it. I would really love to hear from you - it's been a long time since I've gotten a review (my fault, I know) so please drop me a line and let me know what you thought!**

**rhymes**


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